Gatherers Garden
Sitemap Gatherers Garden machine * See also Little Sisters * See also ADAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . --- --- --- Gatherers Gardens : "Smarter than Einstein, Stronger than Hercules ..." : Gatherers Gardens didn't contain stockpiles of ADAM, they processed it into Plasmids and Tonics (They supplied the genetic modification pattern components) for their product and customers. People wanting an ADAM product made would have to supply the ADAM used (that's the way it worked in the game). Therefore, there was no real reason for them to be 'broken into' (You KNOW that Splicers WOULD chew through metal, for as long as it would take, to get at that tasty ADAM they craved). The 'GG' machines also apparently had no Coin Slot for payment either (Which could be rectified for the MMORPG). Perhaps, when Ryan was deploying his 'Pheromone' enhances Plasmid/Tonics, he did not want to discourage Splicers by charging them money (After that, we're not sure who then maintained the machines - Why would Sofia Lamb want to give any of her sefs/slaves/minions the ability to Plasmid-Up and then come FRY her, if they had two braincells still left working ??). --- --- --- --- --- Probably the Gatherers Garden machines had something inside that looked like this. Collecting Raw ADAM (as Payment) and dispensing (elsewhere) refined ADAM with the selected Plasmidic Genetic additives/components included. . . . . . . . --- --- --- Sign : ADAM BOUGHT AND SOLD : It wasn't Gatherers Gardens ONLY that sold ADAM products in Rapture -- other sources : Stores/Shops (we saw signs), Medical Suppliers selling to doctors, bootleggers on streetcorners (cheaper/subtandard instead of illegal, unless there was Patent enforcement). Doctors using ADAM manually on patients for esoteric/complex therapies. Likewise, Fontaine wasn't the only generator of ADAM. Other companies produce the stuff and anyone having a 'pet' Sea Slug might produce some. Of course, raw ADAM isn't particularly useful, and its being refined and combined into ADAM-based products is a further difficulty factor. Later, 'Independents' (and Bootleggers) may have run their own stables of kidnapped children to supply the ADAM they sold. - When were the Gatherers Gardens machines added ? Fontaine may have had them built while he was still around to 'Cut Out the Middleman'. Ryan talks of the Little Sister image in Marketing_Gold, but that may have only been about adding it to existing machines, to correspond to a big new advertisement campaign. But then WHEN ? It would be somewhat discordant (Ryan sounds so mercantile about selling the LS motif in that Audio Diary) to have such a businesslike attitude during a 'civil war'/panic post-Kashmir situation -- Unless the Atlas/Rebel emergence and increasing mayhem took some longer time to develop post-Kashmir (which runs contrary to McDonagh talking about panicking people started 'lining up around the block' to get Plasmids to defend themselves from the anarchists). Paying for ADAM with ADAM (in the GG machines)? Where, that early, do citizens get it. ADAM becoming the 'currency' that early (again - WHEN?) They must've taken CASH initially. They must've had a sufficient advantage over Pharmacy sold ADAM (and possibly long-term plans by Ryan to use the limited access to wean his citizens off the poison). Something about Atlas causing riots by declaring there was an ADAM shortage is mentioned... (that is post-Kashmir). No doubt with Fontaine Futuristics disorganized, production would have declined. Sept 15 (Shootout) - Dec 31(Kashmir) --- 3.5 months to seize/reorganize/rebuild/resume the Fontaine Futuristics component of the ADAM market (including continuing to run those "Orphanages", which were probably a large part of the City's Raw ADAM source). That is actually alot to accomplish in such a short time (real world, they probably would hardly be started on just drawing up plans for it all in 3 months or 3 years if typical bureaucrats were involved). --- --- --- Gatherers Garden Machines Were Not Hackable ' : Damn. To Bad (I would Imagine Extreme Difficulty for THIS ). The game designers decided not to allow it (no reason they couldn't have existed with some minor (ie- 10%) discount allowed - but with making the HACKING very hard -- with even the Auto-Hacks blowing up, and with no 'Buyout'). These Vending Machines were created at a later time (in Rapture's Timeline - seen most likely after Ryan got control of Fontaine Futuristics), and with a very high value commodity inside. So it was possible to have been made with better/more-advanced 'Hack Proof' mechanisms/features. --- --- --- '''Columbia Gets Machines TOO ' Infinite BS had a similar kind of 'Vigor' selling machines. A Lame ANACHRONISM. They simply copied the game element -- no matter how inappropriate it was to the era. BUT Where else could you obtain the 'magic potions' ??? -- As a logical (era) 'shop'/Drugstore solution would require the Player interfacing with a Human, who in the game story were all ready to shoot Booker. So without resorting to some better imaginative solution (which WOULD have taken a bit of real work and skill), they simply regurgitated/lazily-copied/duplicated the same simple game mechanism. Actually, IF they had had some actual imagination, the game makers could have '''ALSO had an alternative to the Vigors (the copied magic potion game element). Using Quantums BS (the explanation for everything else impossible in the game), it wouldnt have to be contained in a magic fluid (some fantastic steampunky machine with a 'nice little light show' as it ENTANGLED SUPER DIMENSIONAL POWERS would have served. The game makers apparently lacked such imagination. They could have avoided having to leave largely unexplained why the Vigors/Plasmid-copies even were in Columbia. Later they also could have avoided having all the strange plot complications in BaSx -- All that where they ludicrously explained how the super genetic scientist (NOT!!) Fink came to make his own Rapture-like Plasmids. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- . .